manifestation
by bubblegum days
Summary: "Sometimes, I have trouble not crying." character study, Robbie and Rex.


"Sometimes, I have trouble _not _crying."

Awkward stares and awkward laughs, of course. Mentally, he views these moments in slow motion, the camera zooming to his friends' faces with their confused smiles. Then the camera would zoom out, a long shot that ends with him sitting alone because-this time, in double speed-everyone would leave and he would be left alone with his puppet on his knee in the back of a truck, just a small inch-tall speck on a wide, beautiful shot. Of course, this isn't what happens-his line is soon forgotten and when lunch ends, they all go to class together. But, if he were a filmmaker who was making a movie about his life, that would've been the perfect scene to place somewhere in the middle. Maybe it would click for the audiences about his loneliness and his self-deprecation at this moment. Perhaps it would stick with some people.

He's not a filmmaker, though. He wonders if he would be a good filmmaker. He's good at other things-he's often called _versatile_, because his talents are all over the place. He can sing and write songs. He can dance and act. He can shove his hand up a puppet's ass and make it talk. He can give the puppet a personality. He can play guitar and has a knack for managing small groups of people, though that requires finding a source of power beforehand that makes him feel confident enough. But he's not the best singer, songwriter, dancer, actor, guitar player, or manager. No, that's Tori and André, Beck and Jade, and Cat fits in somewhere, too. He guesses he's great with ventriloquism, and he hasn't met somebody his age who is better at guitar, but that doesn't make him the , he knows that there are better.

Maybe he has a complex. He doesn't know, because he doesn't take psychology, and he's never looked up complexes. These are just shots in the dark. But maybe he has an inferiority complex. Maybe it's just easy to diagnose yourself when you're sitting alone in your room at your desk with your head in your hands and those little voices in the back of your head-well, more like coming from your own mouth, because Rex is always there to voice them for his convenience-telling you that you are not good enough. That you are not the best and just a stand-in until they can find someone better. That you are being ridiculous for thinking their smiles actually _mean _something.

Oh, and that's another thing. Nobody could ever love him, right? He shakes with hollow laughter, feeling more like is trying to heave himself onto a shore than that he is expressing joy. He is ugly and he knows that. His personality is just _dismal. _The girl he chased for years will not even tell him the truth that she doesn't want to go to prom with him. The boy he follows loyally is too devoted to the wicked girl who called him an insufferable, awkward prick when he spilled Italian salad dressing own the front of her best friend's favorite dress-which might be why she didn't go to prom with him. He can still remember Cat running from the booth in the restaurant to the bathroom, Jade following after her with her lip curled as if she was bothered by the prospect of taking care of Cat. He remembers how Beck helped him clean up, all easy smiles and little jokes to try to make him feel better. But nothing changed; nobody treated him better or worse. He didn't even have a chance with the new girl, the clean slate. His eagerness threw her off like it threw her sister off. They walked away from him, cast him strange stares, and looked at him as if he was a repulsing wad of gum on the bottom of their shoes. That hurt.

Eventually he will pick himself up from the desk and put himself to bed, tucking the puppet in along with him. The puppet will not talk because the puppet is asleep and Robbie will find himself alone, in the dark, though that doesn't bother him. In fact, it makes him a little bit happy. There is nobody telling him that he isn't worth it when he is alone and in the dark. In fact, he can persuade himself that he is not, in fact, horrible, and maybe being a jack-of-all-trades is a good thing, even if he doesn't really peak in any of his so-called trades. He can tell himself that Beck is his best friend and there was no decrease in communication when he started dating Jade _two and a half years ago. _Moreover, that maybe somebody will love him, maybe it just takes time. He will fall into a blissful sleep of self-encouragement.

Come morning, the puppet will wake up, and Robbie won't find himself alone anymore.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **Based on two small fragments of Robbie-related canon: the fact that Rex disappears when Robbie is confident in _Robarazzi,_ and his line in _Rex Dies. _Robbie is the male character that I find most interesting on the show, and his relationship with Rex is why. So I explored it.


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